Tourism and Monarchy in Southeast Asia Tourism and Monarchy in Southeast Asia Edited by Ploysri Porananond and Victor T. King Tourism and Monarchy in Southeast Asia Edited by Ploysri Porananond and Victor T. King This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Ploysri Porananond, Victor T. King and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9949-6 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9949-9 CONTENTS Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Introduction: Tourism and Monarchy in Southeast Asia: From Symbolism to Commoditization Ploysri Porananond and Victor T. King Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 20 Brunei Darussalam: “A Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures” Victor T. King Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 39 Image (Re)presentation and Royal Tourism: A Case Study of the Royal City of Kuala Kangsar, Ipoh, Malaysia Nor Hafizah Selamat and Hasanuddin Othman Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 69 Commoditizing His Majesty’s Footprints: Tourism in Highland Ethnic Communities in Northern Thailand Prasit Leepreecha Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 89 The Monarch, the Elephant, and Tourism in Chiang Mai, Thailand Ploysri Porananond Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 103 Management of World Cultural Heritage for Sustainable Tourism in Hue Royal Capital, Vietnam Bui Thi Tam Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 118 Tourism and Monarchy in Vietnam Nguyen Pham Hung vi Contents Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 142 Walking from the “Head to Tail of Town”: The Political Identities and Social Memories of Luang Prabang Supachai Singyabuth Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 165 Royal Tourism in Mandalay and Yangon Simon Duncan Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 183 Tourism of the Javanese Monarchy during the Dutch Colonial Era Janianton Damanik and Destha T. Raharjana Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 199 Palace of Capitals: A Traditional Tourist Kingdom in Modern Bali Graeme Macrae and I Nyoman Darma Putra Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 214 Singapore Royal Tourism: What!? Kailasam Thirumaran Contributors ............................................................................................. 231 Index ........................................................................................................ 235 Colour plates follow page 230 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: TOURISM AND MONARCHY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: FROM SYMBOLISM TO COMMODITIZATION PLOYSRI PORANANOND AND VICTOR T. KING Royalty and Tourism: a Neglected Field of Research It is well known that monarchies around the world play a significant role in tourism development and the tourist experience. Debates about the level of finance required to support primarily constitutional monarchies often refer to the positive tourist attraction provided by royal pageantry, palaces, temples and churches, architecture, museum collections, and historical legacies. The argument for the positive benefits which royalty brings in contributing to the increase in international visitor arrivals but also in enhancing the level of domestic visitor numbers to sites of royal recognition and national celebration are frequently marshalled on behalf of the British royal family as a very well-known global phenomenon. Where would London-based tourism be if it were not for Buckingham Palace, and the associated royal parks, historical buildings, collections and landscapes surrounding it, the annual calendar of royal celebrations, anniversaries and events, and special occasions like royal weddings and births, royal visits to the provinces, and official openings of buildings, sites, and events? The British national newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran articles in 2010 and 2011 (see, for example, www.telegraph.co.uk, 28 July 2010; 20 June 2011; 9 July 2011) on themes such as “More than ever, the Royal Family is worth every penny” and that it “attracts £500 million from overseas tourism”. Although not on the same scale, other royal families in Europe also have a considerable role to play in promoting tourism in their countries and overseas: among others, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Monaco, Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Spain. Royalty then is 2 Chapter One business; it attracts tourists to royal sites and routes, and because members of royal families frequently travel and tour, and sites are given special significance if they have been given royal patronage or they are associated with the past presence of members of royalty, marked very often by special plaques and other markers of royal blessing, benefaction, and benevolence. It is not merely that tourists visit sites but that they buy royal souvenirs and other memorabilia as well. However, up to now the literature on tourism and monarchy has been primarily devoted to the history and experiences of Western Europe, and particularly the United Kingdom. A landmark book in this respect is Royal Tourism: Excursions around Monarchy edited by Philip Long and Nicola Palmer (2008). The book is overwhelmingly devoted to British royalty (see, for example, Baxendale 2008; Butler 2008; Palmer 2008). But, in his editorial introduction, Long remarks that “there has been little work that has explored the broad and specific relationships between royalty and tourism in contemporary contexts. A direct, specific focus on the subject of ‘royal tourism’ has thus been overlooked in the tourism literature” (2008, 1–2). The same can be said with even more force for “royal tourism” in Southeast Asia, and other parts of Asia, as well as in the Middle East and Africa. Surprisingly little attention has been given to the relationship between monarchy and tourism development in Southeast Asia, still less on the historical dimension of monarchy and tourism there. This may be simply because, in several Southeast Asian countries, colonialism and then decolonization and the establishment of political independence have marginalized or removed traditional royalty and its symbolic and ritual functions at the centre of the nation-state. It is only more recently with the increasing importance of cultural, historical and heritage tourism that monarchy has begun to be resurrected as an important element in the service industry and in economic development plans. The need to shift the focus from European to Asian royalty is important not only to begin to fill gaps in the literature on monarchy and tourism outside Europe but also to attempt to avoid the increasing criticism of tourism studies that its major perspectives, orientations and paradigms have been based on an overly Eurocentric preoccupation (see, for example, Cohen and Cohen 2012, 2014, 2015). In this connection “rethinking Asian tourism” with the objective of “Asianizing” it has become an especially crucial arena for recent research (Ploysri Porananond and King 2014). Three examples with regard to the comparison of the relationships between monarchy and tourism in Western Introduction 3 Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, and Southeast Asia might help illustrate some of the differences in their character and emphasis. First, in the Kingdom of Thailand, for example, monarchy has an important religious and sacred status, and in Negara Brunei Darussalam and the Federation of Malaysia the social and cultural distance between sultans and the wider population and the aura surrounding royalty, though decreasing, is still significant. In this regard there are certain areas of royal life on which newspapers, television and other media are not permitted to report. We should also note here that the King of Cambodia, as a resurrected constitutional monarch, occupies a somewhat ambiguous and tenuous position in a socialist state. However, this is not to say that members of the respective royal families in Southeast Asia do not interact on a public stage with their citizens or that the population is not interested in the personal dimension of their royalty. But the kinds of intrusive reporting, for example, of the personal lives of members of the British royal family and their constant pursuit by the paparazzi would not be allowed in Southeast Asia. This public exposure in Europe but especially in the United Kingdom which, in raising royal profiles, feeds into tourism activities in certain respects also requires a formidable public relations, press office and publicity machine